File management is one of the most visible components of an operating system. Computers store programs and data on several types of physical media. Each medium has its own unique characteristics including access speed, capacity, and access methods, among others.

• Discuss mass storage physical structures including hard disks, with and without RAID, solid state disks, and magnetic tapes. Address important  data transfer, transfer rates, formatting, blocks, I/O bus, controllers, and swap space.